Paul Hannigan believes that each institute needs to make its own decisions, writes Barry O'Halloran

More than half of all Leaving Cert students who are this month moving on to third-level will begin the next stage of their education with one or other of the State's institutes of technology.

According to the chairman of the Council of Directors of Institutes of Technology, Mr Paul Hannigan, more than 50 per cent of all applications to the Central Applications Office, which manages enrolment to the Republic's third-level education, are to the 13 regional institutes.

The bodies are not just the first port of call for students seeking a third-level education, Mr Hannigan says, they are frequently the first place that potential multi-national investors in each region are brought to visit because they are a key source of manpower for Irish and foreign-owned business operating in the State.

The institutes are looking to move on the next stage of their own development, and this is likely to be one of the first issues to confront the newly appointed Minister for Education and Science, Ms Hanafin.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has just completed a Government-commissioned review of the Irish third-level education system, which recommends a number of structural reforms.

While everybody knows that the findings of all Government-commissioned reports are "significant", Mr Hannigan says this report is genuinely important because the Department of Education has been waiting for its findings before moving ahead with any proposed changes to Irish third-level education.

The OECD carried out its evaluation last February, taking written and oral submissions from all the relevant parties. According to Mr Hannigan, in their written and oral submissions, he and his council colleagues "were pushing a strong agenda for autonomy".

"We're very much governed by the Department of Education and Science, while the universities operate under the Higher Education Authority," he explains. "So our situation is that we feel that we're being micro-managed to a certain extent. It's very difficult to take decisions in your own organisation because it requires you to go back to the Department for approval.

"What we're asking under the OECD review is for more autonomy to carry out our roles more effectively. Our main focus was to look for this freedom. As a result of that, the report has come up with a recommendation to establish what's called a 'tertiary education authority', which will have two committees, one to deal with universities and one to deal with institutes of technology, but with an overarching structure as well. We feel that this is a major step forward."

Mr Hannigan says that the case for autonomy is based on the regional nature of the institutes, which are essentially there to feed the manpower and development needs of the industries and businesses in their given areas. And he argues these regions have very different needs.

"If you're looking at Letterkenny Institute of Technology [of which he is director\] and you're comparing it to Cork or some of the other ones, there's different agendas and different communities that you're dealing with," he says. "It doesn't make sense that you're all governed by the same Department. You need to be positive and pro-active in what you're doing in your own region. So you need the governing hand lifted off you to a certain extent.

"If you take my own situation in Donegal, where the political scene is about continuous job losses, you're dealing with a very different situation than some of the other colleges are dealing with in city locations and you have to be flexible in order to deal with the community that you're working with and providing opportunities for them.

"What the autonomy means to us is that we can turn around and say, 'there's a course required there'. Then we need to be able to put that on, and we need to do it quickly and we need to have the flexibility to do that. We might need to employ two or three people to try and move that forward. We need to be able to do this, and we shouldn't need to go back looking for permission all the time."

In a day-to-day sense, this means tailoring courses to the needs of the industries and potential investors in each respective region. While the institutes' courses result in independent and internationally recognised qualifications, there are many examples where they have modified courses to suit the needs of the immediate jobs market.

They also work hand-in-hand with local industry, carrying out applied research, which really amounts to "problem solving" for businesses.

With the help of Department of Education funding, the institutes have also been supporting new business through the Enterprise Platform Programme. Between 1996 and 2002, this resulted in just over €5.1 million in State funds being used to aid what developed into 273 businesses, which in turn created 1,008 jobs.

They also participate in research and development with universities, although the base funding for this does not go to the institutes directly. Instead, the universities pass on a share of it for specific projects after the institutes have competed for it against other bodies.

Mr Hannigan's arguments for giving the institutes the scope they believe they need to develop are convincing, and they're also well rehearsed. To be fair, the institutes were originally established as "regional technical colleges" and their regional role is underscored in all the legislation relating to them. Fulfilling this is obviously going to require some flexibility. But what are the chances of Government granting them the autonomy they need?

Mr Hannigan readily agrees that the Department has not set its face against letting the institutes off the leash. He says Mr Noel Dempsey struck him as a very "reform minded" minister, while his staff have generally proved to be open-minded and flexible. However, he says that any discussion with Government has always been held in the context of "we'll have to wait and see what the OECD review says".

Now it appears that the Paris-based organisation agrees with Mr Hannigan and the council. What he and his colleagues want to see is the Minister agreeing to do it and setting a date for the establishment of the new structure. That will require the new Minister to be at least as reform minded as the previous incumbent.

Name: Paul Hannigan.

Position: Director of Letterkenny Institute of Technology in Co Donegal and chairman of the Council of Directors of Institutes of Technology. He is also a member of the Higher Education Authority (HEA) and is on the board of the Central Applications Office (CAO).

Background: Originally from Ballyshannon, Co Donegal, he graduated with a BComm and Master of Business Studies from UCD.

He worked for a short period in the Northern Regional Fisheries Board  before joining Dundalk Regional Technical College (as it was then) where he became head of its business studies department after five years, lecturing in economics and human resources studies. He joined Letterkenny Institute of Technology in early 1998.

Why is he in the news? A new report from the OECD recommends that the institutes of technology be given more autonomy.